Riverside County Supervisors move forward on jails

RIVERSIDE - The county's governing body bumped a planned jail to
the top of its priority list Tuesday, putting it first in line for
at least $250 million in construction funding.

The jail would accommodate more than 900 inmates, allowing
Riverside County to narrow what officials call a "bed deficit" by
the year 2012.

Much of the $255 million-plus needed for the project could come
from redirecting court-ordered payments from tobacco companies that
now go toward a county medical center.

Labeled a "hub" jail by county officials, the facility would
house long-term inmates who aren't expected to make regular trips
to court. For that reason, it wouldn't have to be located near a
court complex.

The Board of Supervisors' 4-0 vote identified the planned jail
as the county's top building priority. No site has been chosen,
though county officials have suggested several locations near
Highway 60 in the north-central portion of the county since the
planning process began. A report presented to supervisors last year
suggested the general areas of Mead Valley, San Gorgonio, Gilman
Springs, San Timoteo Canyon and a fifth area 12 miles west of San
Timoteo Canyon.

Officials foresee the jail being expanded over time to catch up
with a growing population of inmates. The 3,467 beds now in the
county's jail system fall about 1,000 beds short of what's needed,
forcing jails to release inmates before their sentences are up,
according to officials with the county government and sheriff's
department.

"There are too many folks that are walking around that should be
in jail now," said Supervisor Marion Ashley, whose 5th District
includes most of the potential jail sites, before the vote. "It's
pretty obvious that this is a move we really need to do."

Third District Supervisor Jeff Stone, who was en route to a
conference in Washington, D.C., missed the vote Tuesday morning and
couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

A first phase with 1,200 beds would be targeted for
groundbreaking in 2009 and completion by 2012, allowing an older
jail with 289 beds to close down around the same time. A second
phase with as many as 600 beds could follow two years later. Along
with a 600-bed expansion of the Larry Smith Correctional Facility
in Banning, to be completed in 2009, the expansions would boost the
system's capacity to 5,578 inmates by 2014.

The sheriff's department expects the inmate population to grow
from 3,467 to 5,338 in the same period.

The vote Tuesday followed little discussion and prompted only a
quick caveat from Betty Anderson, a county resident who attended
the meeting.

"I think $250 million for this project is outrageous," Anderson
said, citing the prospect of runaway costs.

The jail and associated administrative facilities are projected
to cost from $255 million to $284 million.

Ed Mead, president of California Prison Focus, an inmate
advocacy group, called the move wasteful and misguided. State and
county governments should focus more efforts on community-based
programs that are cheaper and more likely to turn inmates into
productive members of society, Mead said.

"You can take a calculator and figure out, using statistics that
are currently available, the date when half of California's
population is going to be prison guards and the other half is going
to be prisoners," Mead said.